Snake Venom Beer

Snake Venom Beer

Brewmeister Snake Venom Beer is a barley wine beer and is officially known as the world’s strongest beer. Brewmeister is a Scottish brewery based in Keith, Moray, which was founded in 2012. The company produced their first beer Argageddon, the world’s strongest beer back in 2012, with an ABV of 65%. Since some batches of Armageddon were incorrectly manufactured, Brewmeister replaced it with a stronger beer called Snake Venom. Unlike Armageddon, Snake Venom claimed to have a stomach-burning 67.5% ABV, making it the world’s strongest beer. A warning label was added on the bottle to advise consumers to only take one drink per sitting.

Snake Venom is dark amber in color, and unlike Armageddon, the alcohol is not masked in Snake Venom. Alcohol is highly present, but it still tastes like a beer and has a good degree of hop profile. It has no carbonation due to the high ABV. Each batch is tested by the brewery before bottling, whereas random batches of the beer are also tested externally. Regular monitoring of the fermentation when making beer allows for such a high ABV.

The Scottish beer is made with smoked peat malt and uses both Champagne yeast and ale yeast. These yeasts are used for producing beer and champagne. Whether it is technically a beer is up for debate as the freeze concentration used to up the alcohol content pushes it more in the realm of hard alcohol. The beverage is frozen following the Eisbock technique which removes any water crystals from the beer, resulting in an increase in ABV of the beer.

The technique used to brew Snake Venom offers a unique experience to the taster. The beer displays an intense and deep black color and displays no head. The nose is very fruity which is focused on the yeast. When in the mouth, the beer reveals its complexity and the incredible flavors of lemon, apple and cherry. The beer has a finely balanced whole and tasters can enjoy a tasty beer that features numerous pleasant flavors. The finish is bitter and is under the predominance of the alcohol.

Snake Venom is less heavy given its incredible ABV. The idea behind Snake Venom was to produce something which still tastes like beer, and not be masked by a harsh alcohol flavour. The alcoholic strength in the beer is increased when it is fortified after brewing by freezing out the water content and removing the ice.

Priced at a whooping £50 a bottle and an ABV of nearly 70 per cent, you definitely wouldn’t want to drink it all in one go. Lewis Shand of Brewmeister said: “Snake Venom is not like other beers in that we would not recommend drinking a whole bottle in one go. It should be savoured in small measures in a similar way to a fine whisky or brandy. We are delighted that Trading Standards has confirmed that Snake Venom is the world’s strongest beer.”